How God Came To Save Us From Ourselves

Without God, what would our lives be?

It would have been a life-long search for meaning and never finding it. It would have been a futile attempt to love and be loved. It would have been an empty series of amusements without ever finding true happiness and peace.

Deep inside, I think every person has this yearning to be good. But if we can be honest with ourselves, we can only be good up to a certain extent.

We can be good to others who are also good to us.

We can be good when it’s comfortable to do so.

We can be good if we’re not tired or hungry or suffering in pain.

But can we still be good when everything seems to be against us and we feel alone, abandoned and unloved?

Can we still be good when we experience so much injustice and all we see is evil being triumphant everywhere?

Deep inside, we also want to love.

We want to love the people who matter most to us. We want to protect them from evil and harm.

But what if, despite our best efforts and intentions, we are the ones who end up hurting the very people that we love?

We fail to be patient enough when people fail to meet our expectations.

We become irritable and harsh when we’re stressed and facing difficult times.

And instead of giving words of consolation, we judge and hurt the people we say we love the most.

God knows the deepest yearnings of our hearts.

He knows that no matter how hard we try, we can never fully satisfy our noblest desires.

Whenever we face the mirror, we are reminded that our greatest frustration is our failure to be who we truly want to be.

We are burdened with guilt for all our shortcomings when it comes to loving other people. We are filled with shame when memories of our selfishness come to mind.

God came to save us from ourselves.

He came to give us grace so that we can finally become who were meant to be!

“Come to me and be transformed. Come and feed upon the Bread which alone can give you life!”

Jesus willingly suffered and died so He could take us away from the darkness where we are. From this futile life where even our best efforts can never bring us peace.

Come and follow Him and be like the One who loves you so.

Don’t look at your failures, but look to Him who has already overcome the world!

Trust Him. For He has come to save us and give us a new heart. The kind of heart that can love as much as He can love!

“I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 1:6 (NABRE)

“In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.”― St. Augustine

“I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep them. You will live in the land I gave to your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.” – Ezekiel 36:26-28 (NABRE)

Jocelyn Soriano is the author of Mend My Broken Heart, Defending My Catholic Faith and 366 Days of Compassion.